Tag: Tutorial

In part one we did the setup. Part two we did the coding. Now we will continue some of the coding but also start looking at some configuration options.

Step 1: More Services

Lets finish up the rest of the services. We are basically mimicking what we just did for the Occasions API call for the Results and Details. If we look at the API we find the endpoint to get all drinks by occasion is /drinks/for/occasion_id. We have a route that mimics that /drinks/:filter/:id We can use this route, controller and service over and over again by changing the filter based on what we want returned. Read more “Building Cross Platform Apps with Visual Studio – Part 3”

Lets reset a bit on our project. We are starting to look at building an app that will be able to run on iOS, Android and Windows. There are a couple of ways to doing this, natively or cross platform approach. If we were to build a native app for 3 platforms we would have to code in 3 different languages and use 3 different IDE’s. (Not counting a tool like Xamarin). We are also looking at the multiple stack developer who has a lot of “web” knowledge. They know how to build web apps and their skills can translate well to this cross platform development. We will be using HTML and JavaScript to build this app. Most importantly, we will be using Visual Studio to create our cross platform app.

The app can be anything, but in this example it is a drink recipe app. Categories -> Results -> Details. That is the flow of our app. We will be using a theme from Bootstrap to make it look pretty and responsive for multiple screen sizes. AngularJS will be our JavaScript MVC Framework for the back-end. We left off with a basic “barebones” app structure that we will build upon.

Lets Begin

If you don’t know it already, mobile apps are all the rage. From social networking to pictures and videos to gaming, the app ecosystem is where you want to be. But what if you are a “one-stack” developer? What if you only know HTML/JavaScript? What if your expertise lies in Web Development? Well, they all have their challenges but over the next few articles I will try to demystify the mobile development process especially when it comes to cross platform development. The “one-stack” developer has is a bit easier. They know what the hardware will be. They know the screen size and capabilities of the device. They can reuse code over and over again and create some high quality apps. The “multiple-stack” developer has an advantage as well. They know how to code for multiple platforms. They know what may or may not be possible for each of the platforms. Lets look at the “stacks” and define them a bit.

I’m excited to announce my next tutorial series of adding SoundCloud API to an App Studio project. We look at creating the app out on App Studio as well as different options to integrate SoundCloud into the app. Over the next few weeks I am going to explore adding the SoundCloud services into an app generated by Windows Phone App Studio. If you do not know what Windows Phone App Studio is, you can view the site or follow my tutorials to get you up to speed. In short, it is an online tool to quickly generate Windows Phone and Windows 8.1 apps. You are provided with the source code and have the ability to extend your generated app. Read more “Add SoundCloud to your App Studio Project”

In the first part of the tutorial we just did the basics. Enter a collection in our App Studio project and add a service provider to communicate to SoundCloud API to “launch” the media to play. While it works, it is not as elegant as we would like.

In this part, we will build upon what we did with the first steps but add background audio so that our media plays when we navigate away from the app. Let’s jump in!

This article assumes you are familiar with Windows Phone App Studio and have created at least one application using it. We are going to implement the SoundCloud api into Windows Phone App Studio. In the first part of this series we will make a connection to SoundCloud and pull in our predefined tracks that we specify within app studio. Later, we will look at playing these tracks using Background Audio as well as integrate playlists from SoundCloud. Lets dive in! Read more “Windows Phone App Studio + SoundCloud = Music Apps”

In the first part we built the robot and loaded a sample sketch to make sure all our connections and motors are working. In this part we will add another module to connect via Bluetooth and build a Windows app to communicate to the robot. This is what we will accomplish as a bare bones communication app.Read more “Building a Windows Phone Controlled Arduino Robot – Part 2”

I am partnering with one of the universities near me to perform a few workshops to build a Windows Phone App to control an arduino robot via Bluetooth. I recently built an universal app that communicated to an arduino board to perform a little trivia game. It was fun and straightforward. I am bringing most of that underlying code over to controlling a robot. Here is what I got so far:

If you are a modern day developer you do not have the luxury to know just one type of technology or language. Sure, you can have your specialty, but the more knowledge you have the more valuable you can become. When I worked in the digital agency world, we did not have the luxury to use just one type of technology stack. We had to support all types. Java, Struts, LAMP, .NET, ASP and more. Based on our clients needs we had to switch from using C# with .NET to coding with PHP and CodeIgniter. At Microsoft as an evangelist, it works the same way. I do not have the “traditional” clients, but you do. I support you as a developer and you have many clients with different technology stacks.

This series is to explain how to run Linux VM’s out on Azure, configure and edit and debug as well. The other big thing to note, is this can all be done on a non-Microsoft system, ie. Mac.